Category: The Tokyo Underground: Sound

As well as being glued to the cricket, yesterday afternoon was spent designing the audio in Audacity for the rotoscope animation in my last project, Don’t Have Nightmares 0.2: The Tokyo Underground. The audio is made up from an eclectic mix of ambient sounds. The train carriage audio is applied primarily as the base sound. Ambient sounds such as cicadas, crackling and popping wet wood and lost laughter in the breeze have been arranged fading in/out at various points. In the past, I’ve found that when experimenting in Audacity, it’s very easy to over-tweak, cut too much, over-amplify, suffocate the sound with heavy effects and end up with a cacophony as a result. While editing yesterday, simplicity is key with subtle adjustments. I’m pleased with the overall arrangement and finding my way round Audacity with more ease is encouraging.

The Tokyo Underground was a site-specific project was made between February-July 2015 as part of a series (Don’t Have Nightmares) which explores aspects of fear in art. The resulting rotoscope animation, Alienation & Conformity is a personal interpretation of how fear pervades daily urban life while living and working in alien environments. The animated passenger pan is a comment on emotions and anxieties endured over a period of time. The journey begins with a feeling of trepidation, being watched, analysed and under scrutiny and over time the tension begins to diminish though the fear is still underlying. Though the work is largely a personal experience, it also a comment on how an economic and political system can be ruthlessly exposed and pushed into the psyche of the inhabitants. The many who are caught up within these brutal capitalistic parameters, all carrying the same flag in pursuit of profit, wealth and the material gain.